Inauguration Days Represent Moments of History, Change : Politics: Marked by snafus or momentous events, the swearing in of a President symbolizes for Americans a continuity and hope for the future.

When Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed the presidency in 1953, he decided to forgo the traditional top hat and wear a homburg to his oath-taking. It almost caused a crisis.

But outgoing President Harry S. Truman told aides he didn’t want to leave office quarreling about hats and agreed to wear a homburg also.

Three decades later, a frustrated Jimmy Carter ended his presidency as 52 American hostages completed the last of their 444 days in Iranian captivity. The Americans were freed moments after Ronald Reagan was sworn in, and it was the new President who announced the hostages have “left Iranian airspace.”

Such matters, minor and momentous, help form the rich history of inaugurations--events that symbolize continuity and change in America.

“There is something in human nature that wants the opportunity for a new beginning,” said American University President Joseph Duffey, commenting on the importance of inaugurations. “There is a deep communal need to start over again. It’s the essence of hope.”

Organizers of President-elect Bill Clinton’s inauguration say they are cognizant of history even as they stress the shift to Democratic rule after 12 years of Republicans in the White House.

“We planned a traditional event to make America proud and to get people involved,” said Mary Mel French, co-director of the Clinton inaugural committee.

A case in point: Clinton’s bus trip to Washington from Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, Va. It recalled a journey made by one of the nation’s most illustrious presidents nearly 200 years ago.

In fact, Jefferson came to Washington from Monticello, his Virginia home, five months before he took office in 1801. On Inauguration Day, the nation’s third President walked two blocks to the Capitol from the boarding house where he was staying.

Jefferson returned to the house to dine with fellow residents after the ceremony. And, said Philip Brooks, a historian with the National Archives, Jefferson even refused to sit at the head of the table.

Brooks, an adviser to the Clinton inaugural committee, said there also are some major departures this time. For example, the end of the Cold War and the growing interest in democracy has stirred foreign interest as never before, he said. A reception for diplomats Monday underscored the change.

Some things, of course, never change.

The Connecticut Gazette, reporting on George Washington’s inauguration as the first President in 1789, said, “On this great occasion, the heat of industry was suspended and the various pleasures of the capitol were concentered to a single enjoyment.”

Snafus also seem an inevitable part of such massive celebrations that often are arranged in haste.

One of the most famous occurred at the outset of the populist presidency of Andrew Jackson in 1829. Thousands attending an open house reception at the White House caused mayhem, forcing the new President to exit through a back window.

With the executive mansion in peril, pails of whiskey were carried out to the lawn. The crowd was “drawn off like flies to honey,” according to historians.

The near disaster has not dissuaded other presidents from opening the White House doors to the masses, or at least some of them.

At Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration in 1865, crowds attending a public reception broke ranks and crashed a separate reception for official guests. Damages included spilled food and silverware and pieces of drapery grabbed as souvenirs.

Clinton also plans a White House reception Thursday to wind up the inaugural festivities. In these days of tight security and crowd control, the event will be ticketed. People will be kept outside the building until there is room for them to file in and shake hands with the President and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Screw ups are inevitable,” said Sheila Tate, former press secretary to Nancy Reagan. She said at a Reagan inaugural ball in 1985, crowds waited until the wee hours of the morning for their coats, and many finally took the closest one at hand.

Going coatless that January night would have been unthinkable. Frigid cold--minus 20 degrees wind chill--had forced cancelation of outdoor events during the day.

A late winter blizzard in March, 1909, forced William Howard Taft indoors, the first chief executive since Jackson 76 years earlier to take the oath inside the Capitol.

Theodore Roosevelt, relinquishing power to Taft, left Washington in a hurry. He hustled out a side door of the Senate chamber and headed for a train that took him to New York.

“I knew it would be a cold day when I was made President of the United States,” Taft told Roosevelt earlier in the day.

“I knew there would be a blizzard clear up to the moment I went out of office,” replied Roosevelt.